Welcome

Law enforcement has a secret weapon in the War on Underage Drinking:

Arrest the Parents

Once upon a time, crimes required passion, desperation or recklessness. Not any more. Now, your “crime” could be going out for dinner with your spouse and coming home a half hour earlier than your teen expected…or permitting your child to have three friends sleep over…or agreeing to help celebrate the varsity team’s big win.

Once, being called a Social Host was a compliment on your party planning skills…but this party is happening without your approval.

Today, being called a Social Host means you’ve been charged with an unintended crime of allowing teens to drink in your home. Not buying alcohol for teens or serving alcohol to teens; just not doing enough to prevent them from drinking in your home.

Let’s be absolutely clear: if you believe it’s okay to serve alcohol to other people’s children, this is not the site for you.

However, if your parenting style sits in the muddy middle between the Just-Say-No Prohibitionists and the Always-Say-Yes Permissivists, welcome to SocialHostLaw.com. This website serves to help caring, involved parents navigate the tricky issues of underage drinking and the law. Our goal is to answer the question:

How can we protect our families and ourselves if good parents are criminalized when teens disobey their rules?

SocialHostLaw.com is the source for parents and families for:

Up-to-the-minute news on the laws that affect you

The latest research on underage drinking

Resources to share with your friends and family

Community and Connection

And more

For quick information on Social Hosting, how to find the ordinance in your area and understanding the law, visit our FAQs and Social Host Law Primer pages

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44 comments on “Welcome”

Are you kidding me? I was arrested on the same charge and three years later, I am still haunted by my ordeal. I did not supply, condone, know about or send kids off my property that I knew to have been drinking. I told them at the beginning of the night no drugs or alcohol, (pull and read the police records) and yet they brought vodka and concealed it in water bottles and blue UV vodka in gatorade bottles (again, read the police reports) and I have endured a hellish nightmare. My legal battles were over 100K, not a mere $5000. I can not study in my field of choice because I can not pass a back ground check. My insurance company is being sued to the max by kids who broke my rules and then drove like fools, and by the way, the driver was NEVER charged with drunk driving, just a dozen other violations, one of which was driving on a suspended licence! But, his parents let him take the car! The second car stopped after they watched their friends crash and then DROVE AWAY! And I was charged because I left to get help? (police reports). The drivers of BOTH vehicles involved that night were recently arrested for selling cocaine and their friend who is suing my insurance company, recently had a party, the police showed up and charged a young man with underage drinking, BUT, no adult was arrested for social hosting? This law was created so that law enforcement could pick and choose who to “make a model” of. It certainly wasn’t created for Caleb Chaffee, Dean Esserman, or a lawyer who knowingly allowed alcohol at a 16th birthday party. Just sayin..

I am so sorry to hear about your situation. And you have hit the nail on the head: most Social Host Laws are so poorly written that it left to law enforcement to decide who to arrest and who to let go. If you wish to contact me privately, I will wrote about your plight. Socialhostlaw@socialhostlaw.com

Glad I don’t have any kids. The muddy waters here are deep and dangerous. What if a kid sneaks in a bottle and spikes their sods or juices while the kids are alone for a second. What if they are already on a drug that they had taken at the other kid’s parents, home before ever arriving at your home? Then, they go out again to cause a car accident, etc. Who then, is responsible? Yikes.. Sad, sobering and frightening.

North Carolina will be spending about $3 million per year on the new 'Talk it Out' program aimed at cutting down underage drinking. That money will come not from tax payer dollars, but instead from the ABC Board's revenue.

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